AFSA NEWS 58 SEPTEMBER 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Debrief Netflix’s “The Diplomat” Visits the State Department On June 12, the National Museum of American Diplomacy hosted a panel discussion with Debora Cahn, showrunner of the Netflix political thriller series, “The Diplomat,” and Ambassador Beth Jones, who inspired the creation of the show. Attended by an audience of State Department employees and AFSA staff, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Global Public Affairs Bill Russo moderated a conversation about the making of the show and its depiction of diplomacy. “The Diplomat” follows the main character, career Ambassador Kate Wyler (portrayed by Keri Russell), as she is suddenly assigned to be ambassador to the United Kingdom and must defuse international crises while adjusting to her new place in the spotlight. Cahn, who is well-known for her work as writer and producer on “The West Wing” and executive producer of the series “Homeland,” first became acquainted with Ambassador Jones—a career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan as well as Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia—when Jones served as a consultant for Cahn. “She sat down and started talking very quickly,” Cahn recalled, noting her impression at the time that she was hearing from an action hero in a pantsuit. “I found her stories to be jaw dropping. The intersection between the little bit that we know in the world about diplomacy and the actual experience of it [made it clear that] she needed to be a series.” Amb. Jones said that her goal during the consultations was to convey the kinds of things that foreign policy practitioners do on a daily basis. For example, she spent much of her career talking to people in an effort to explain U.S. goals and gauge feedback. “That’s a main feature of what Debora has written into ‘The Diplomat,’” Jones explained. “Talking to people to find out what they’re thinking, but also to advocate for a change in behavior. That’s the basis for any kind of work [in the field], and that’s what Kate Wyler does in the show. She’s constantly talking to all kinds of people.” Cahn was also interested to learn how a diplomat deals with a problem at the minuteto-minute level. “We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to portray that process accurately and finding really, really specific details that we can then marry with melodramatic fantasy elements that turn your work into my work,” she said. Amb. Jones praised the show for reflecting many realities of a diplomatic career. Like Kate Wyler, she joked, “I have a lot of black suits.” But the series also captures the challenges of leadership. U.S. diplomacy, said Cahn, “is a universe where people are representing the better angels of both America and democracy in a really practical way. Kate Wyler’s anxieties are on her sleeve all the time, and that’s deliberate. In the gender breakdown of leadership positions, I notice a lot of women assume that they aren’t prepared for the job and maybe shouldn’t take it until they are. There’s no way to prepare for that. You’re going to go in and do something bigger and wilder than you imagined you would.” “Kate Wyler is a character who makes it clear that whether or not you’re ready, whether or not you can keep your coffee off your clothes, you can still dive in with the skills you bring to the table and the intellect that you have and create positive change.” Both Cahn and Jones expressed hope that this series inspires the next generation of diplomats to join the FS. “Anybody who’s outgoing, who’s curious, who’s interested in having some impact on the world—the Foreign Service is where they need to go,” said Jones. “We have the chance to work on all kinds of things. We are the lucky ones.” A video of the panel discussion can be viewed at https://interactive.state.gov/ the-diplomat. n Ambassador Beth Jones, left, and showrunner Debora Cahn spoke at a panel discussion on June 12. Anna Hagen, a writer and associate producer for “The Diplomat,” posed with the July-August issue of the FSJ and Inside a U.S. Embassy, which she said served as a vital resource in the writers’ room and on set. AFSA/JULIA WOHLERS AFSA/JULIA WOHLERS
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